步行好还是跑步好

步行好还是跑步好 Is It Better to Walk or Run? 步行好，还是跑步好, Walking and running are the most popular physical activities for American adults. But whether one is preferable to the other in terms of improving health has long been debated. Now a variety of new studies that pitted running directly against walking are providing some answers. Their conclusion? It depends almost completely on what you are hoping to accomplish. 步行和跑步是最受美国成年人欢迎的运动项目。然而究竟是走还是跑更利于健康，人们一直争论不休。最近有不少直接比较跑步与步行的新研究给我们提供了一些答案。他们的结论是,——到底谁更好，基本上完全取决于你的期望。 If, for instance, you are looking to control your weight — and shallowly or not, I am — running wins, going away. In a study published last month in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, and unambiguously titled “Greater Weight Loss From Running than Walking,” researchers combed survey data from 15,237 walkers and 32,215 runners enrolled in the National Runners and Walkers Health Study — a large survey being conducted at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.假如你想减重——无论肤浅与否——跑步更胜一筹，而且大比分领先。今年4月发在《体育医学与科学》(Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise)上的一篇文章清楚明白地打着这样一行标题:《跑步比步行更利于减重》(Greater Weight Loss From Running than Walking)。研究者梳理了参与“全国跑步与步行健康研究”的15237名步行者和32215名跑步者的调查数据。该大型调查由加州伯克利市劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)进行。 Participants were asked about their weight, waist circumference, diets and typical weekly walking or running mileage both when they joined the study, and then again up to six years later. 参与者在调查开始时汇报了自己的体重、腰围、饮食习惯和通常每周或走或跑的英里数，六年后再次汇报以上数据的变化。 Getty Images The runners almost uniformly were thinner than the walkers when each joined the study. And they stayed that way throughout. Over the years, the runners maintained their body mass and waistlines far better than the walkers. 跑步者在调查初期就普遍比步行者瘦，而且之后一直保持。几年下来，跑步者在控制体重指数和腰围方面远比步行者强。 The difference was particularly notable among participants over 55. Runners in this age group were not running a lot and generally were barely expending more calories per week during exercise than older walkers. But their body mass indexes and waist circumferences remained significantly lower than those of age-matched walkers. 这种差异在55岁以上的参与者中尤其明显。此年龄段的跑步者并不进行大量跑步锻炼，也不比同龄步行者每周消耗的卡路里多。但他们的体重指数和腰围显著比同龄步行者低。 Why running should better aid weight management than walking is not altogether clear. It might seem obvious that running, being more strenuous then walking, burns more calories per hour. And that’s true. But in the Berkeley study and others, when energy expenditure was approximately matched — when walkers head out for hours of rambling and burn the same number of calories over the course of a week as runners — the runners seem able to control their weight better over the long term. 为什么跑步比步行更有助于控制体重，原因尚未可知。虽然看似很明显，跑步比步行强度大，每小时燃烧的卡路里更多——这是事实。然而，在上述及其他调查研究中，两种人的能量消耗持平——步行者每周走上好多个小时，与跑步者燃烧同样卡路里——那么跑步者似乎真的能在长期内更好地控制体重。 One reason may be running’s effect on appetite, as another intriguing, if small, study suggests. In the study, published last year in the Journal of Obesity, nine experienced female runners and 10 committed female walkers reported to the exercise physiology lab at the University of Wyoming on two separate occasions. On one day, the groups ran or walked on a treadmill for an hour. On the second day, they all rested for an hour. Throughout each session, researchers monitored their total energy expenditure. They also drew blood from their volunteers to check for levels of certain hormones related to appetite. 一个小而有意思的研究发现，其中一个原因可能是跑步对食欲的影响。怀俄明大学(University of Wyoming)运动生理学实验室研究了两次不同实验中，9名有经验的女性跑步者和10名长期坚持步行锻炼的女性的身体状况。第一天，参与者在跑步机上或跑或走锻炼一小时。第二天，她们一起休息一小时。在每天的实验中，研究者都全程监控她们的能量消耗，并抽取血样，与食欲有关的激素。研究去年发表在《肥胖症》(The Journal of Obesity)上。杂志 After both sessions, the volunteers were set free in a room with a laden buffet and told to eat at will. 每次实验后，参与者面前都摆上了丰盛的自助餐，可以随意享用。 The walkers turned out to be hungry, consuming about 50 calories more than they had burned during their hourlong treadmill stroll. 结果是，步行者很饿。她们吃掉的热量比刚才在跑步机上消耗掉的还多50卡路里。 The runners, on the other hand, picked at their food, taking in almost 200 calories less than they had burned while running. 跑步者则正相反，她们挑挑拣拣，吃的比消耗的几乎少200卡路里。 The runners also proved after exercise to have significantly higher blood levels of a hormone called peptide YY, which has been shown to suppress appetite. The walkers did not have increased peptide YY levels; their appetites remained hearty. 而且锻炼后，跑步者血液中一种名为酪酪肽的激素水平显著提高，这是一种能够抑制食欲的激素。步行者血中的酪酪肽没有升高，她们食欲旺盛。 So to eat less, run first. 想吃少，先跑一跑。 But on other measures of health, new science shows that walking can be at least as valuable as running — and in some instances, more so. A study published this month that again plumbed data from the Runners and Walkers Health Study found that both runners and walkers had equally dimin ishedrisks of developing age-related catar compa‎‎actsred to sedentary people, an unexpected but excellent benefit of exercise. 不过在健康的其他方面，新的科学研究显示:步行至少和跑步一样有益;而且在某些情况下胜于跑步。今年5月发表的一项研究再次深入探索了“跑步与步行健康研究”的数据。研究者发现:比起久坐不动的人，跑步者和步行者患老年性白内障的风险都有所降低。这可是锻炼‎‎带给人们意料之外的又一大好处。 And in perhaps the most comforting of the new studies, published last month in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascu and againlar Biology using numbers from the versatile Runners and Walkers Health Study, runners had far less risk of high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol profiles, diabetes and heart disease than their sedentary peers. But the walkers were doing even better. Runners, for instance, reduced their risk of heart disease by about 4.5 percent if they ran an hour a day. Walkers who expended the same amount of energy per day reduced their risk of heart disease by more than 9 percent. 最令人欣慰的也许是4月份刊登在《动脉硬化、血栓和血管生物学》(Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology)上的那项新研究了。它再次利用了全面的“跑步者与步行者健康研究”数据。分析发现:跑步者比久坐不动者患高血压、糖尿病、心脏病和查出不良胆固醇指标的概率低得多。不过，步行者的数据更棒。举个例子，跑步者每天跑一个小时，患心脏病的概率降低4.5%;而每天消耗同等热量的步行者，其心脏病患病风险能降低9%以上。 Of course, few walkers match the energy expenditure of runners. “It’s fair to say that, if you plan to expend the same energy walking as running, you have to walk about one and a half times as far and that it takes about twice as long,” said Paul T. Williams, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and the lead author of all of the studies involving the surveys of runners and walkers. 诚然，很少有步行者的能量消耗堪比跑步者。“公平地讲，如果你想用走路的方式消耗掉跑步所能消耗的热量，那你要走1.5倍的距离，花2倍时间。”劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室的研究员保罗?T?威廉姆斯(Paul T. Williams)说。威廉姆斯是上述所有利用了“跑步者与步行者调查”的研究论文的第一作者。 On the other hand, people who begin walking are often more unhealthy than those who start running, and so their health benefits from the exercise can be commensurately greater. 从另一方面来说，开始进行步行锻炼的人通常都不如开始跑步的人健康，因此他们健康获益相对更大。 “It bears repeating that either walking or running is healthier than not doing either,” Dr. Williams said, whatever your health goals. 无论你的健康目标是什么，“跑也好走也好，都比什么都不做强。这一点值得重申。”威廉姆斯博士说。 For confirmation, consider one additional aspect of the appetite study. The volunteers in that experiment had sat quietly for an hour during one session, not exercising in any fashion, neither running nor walking. And afterward they were famished, consuming about 300 calories more than the meager few they had just burned. 为证明此论点，让我们看看那个食欲研究的额外发现:参与者在第二天的实验中静坐一小时，没做任何形式的运动。然后她们饿得不得了，比起刚才燃烧的屈指可数的一点热量，她们竟多吃下去了300卡路里。